Following the Signs, the Path to Music is Clear
From Tucson to Joshua Tree, the desert offers up a ton of healing sound
On the road, there are signs everywhere. When you haven’t exactly mapped out your route, and you don’t know what will come next, you have to pay attention, taking in everything around you to help guide you to the next place.
Since music and harmony are the through lines of my journey, the connecting themes, I am attuned to signs about them everywhere. And they are easily found.
In Tucson, breakfasting at my longtime favorite diner, Frank’s, I saw a card on the bulletin board: Tucson Loves Music.com. When I went to the site, I was thrilled to see a simple listing of a ton of live music events all around the city and the surrounding area, everything from an evening of Irish music to American country to jazz to a variety of local singer/songwriters.
In the window of the Folk Music store I always visit when I’m in town, and stay for hours, looking and playing with everything, signs filled the windows for all kinds of events. I was particularly excited about a Spring Equinox Celebration with a Native American musician and healer Tony Redhouse, and a “Journeys to the Source Sound Healing Immersion” with Kati Astraeir & Gong Gypsy. So much beautiful ritual music and healing harmony to be found in my hometown!
In the store itself, I first looked for a rain stick, having left mine with my friend in Louisville, but then moved on to every section of the amazing packed store. There was a young man playing the banjo happily, and others getting guitars fixed or just wandering around wide-eyed, like me. Musicians and music fans united in common obsession! I started talking to one man, Jimmy, who said at one point he’d had 58 guitars, though right now he only has 13. He talked with bright eyes about his idea for making a windmill hooked up to a piano to make it play, and another sort of chime he’s made with metal cylinders made from old welding tanks he uses for his job that, “when the wind blows, make three tones at once, like a chord.”
“Music’s important,” Jimmy said nodding, “a gift from God.”
The Folk Shop is clearly a hangout for music folk, and Mary Kat, the owner’s partner, is knowledgeable and super friendly. She is the curator of the growing amount of sound healing instruments on the front shelf, which I lingered around for hours. “I’m not a musician,” she said, “so I like all the ‘weird stuff.’” Ha. Me too. She said there was a growing amount of sound healing instruments at this year’s annual Tucson Gem Show, which draws huge crowds every year. “We all need some grounding right now.”
She pointed out the beautiful tiny tongue drum in the wooden open hand, and said it was used often for people in hospice, or people who wanted something to take along easily on hikes into the desert. It was one of many products offered by Atma Buti (translated as “Soul Medicine”), a company and Sound & Vibrational School in Boulder, Colorado owned by sound healer Suren Shrestha, from Nepal, who wrote the popular book How to Heal with Singing Bowls. He and his wife Ruby Shrestha, a healthcare worker, had noticed the growing interest in alternative medicine in the U.S. years back and he left his work as a civil engineer to return to Nepal to study ancient sound healing techniques. He now distributes all kinds of products, including the beautiful Atma Buti tongue drums and Chakra-based tuning fork tubes that Mary Kat and I had all laid out on the counter playing them to hear the different tones. I was in heaven:) I bought the heart chakra, and the tiny tongue drum for my hikes.
The desert has always been a place for healing. So many people flocked to Tucson back in the 40s and 50s from elsewhere because of the dry air, oftentimes told by doctors it would save their lives. As I said my goodbyes to Tucson, and headed off toward Joshua Tree, just catching the sunset as I traveled the empty roads alone through mountain passes, I realized how much this landscape fills my heart and soul, how little I appreciated it growing up and how deeply I savor it now, how healing I find it.
I missed seeing live music in Joshua Tree, since most of it happens Thursday to Sunday and I was there on a Wednesday. But the signs were there that a music and sound healing community is abundant, from the tales of locals at the Joshua Tree Saloon, which itself often features music, to the beautiful sign and musical note hooks on the wall behind the jacuzzi at Casa de Frank, a house just down from the saloon where I rented a room.
At breakfast at the adorable crossroads cafe, I admired the coolio twist on Old West style and the hostess Jodi informed me that there’s been a new term coined for it, “Homestead Modern.” We laughed and got to talking and when I said I was a sound healer on a Search for Harmony she told me I needed to check out the Integratron, a sound bath experience in nearly Landers at a historic landmark structure designed and built by George Van Tassel in 1959 (with help from Howard Hughes) after he claimed to have been visited by aliens from Venus. Wherever he got his instructions, the all-wood dome is said to offer up incredible acoustics that the three Karl sisters and, now, their progeny have been using to offer crystal quartz sound baths since 2000.
After stopping for way too long at the Joshua Tree Rock Shop, where I met the brilliant Brazilian owners Marcelo and Cristina Valadares who are carrying more and more sound healing instruments (Suran Shrestha has spoken to them about starting a school there, apparently), I drove through Joshua Tree National Park for a bit, blown away by the magical formations of the tree limbs and rocks.
The taco cart was my last stop before I made my way out to the Integratron campus, and was luckily able to score a spot for the always-sold-out sound bath experience. Mine, with Joe Karl, was indeed transcendent. Starting with standing at a square in the middle of the dome where your own sound is amplified just to you, I spoke out “Harmony” to the heavens above. And then, lying on the super comfy cushions, I did as instructed and focused my intentions on letting go of what doesn’t serve, and grabbing hold of the laughter, gratitude and love that does. It was a beautiful experience. Joshua Tree and the surrounding area is magic.
Top row, from left, Crossroads Cafe, the amazing Joshua Tree Rock Shop and owner Marcelo Valadares. Bottom row, the beautiful Joshua Tree National Park.
Thanks for following along the road with me! After a brief stop to pick up my son in L.A., we’re heading out on the road again…will keep you posted on what signs we find along the way!!
In Peace & Harmony,
Steph